assimilating
Blending into surroundings
Assimilating is taking something in and making it part of a larger whole.
The body assimilates nutrients from food.
A culture assimilates immigrants when they adopt its customs and language.
A person assimilates new information by integrating it with existing knowledge: It took me a while to assimilate everything I'd learned.
The word often carries tension—assimilation can mean welcome absorption or erasure of difference.
Adopting another society's norms
- adaptingModifying to suit conditions
- blendingCombining into uniformity
- mergingBlending into one
- conformingMeeting accepted standards
naturalizing · adjusting · amalgamating · harmonizing · homogenizing · fusing · melding · coalescing
Making beliefs your own
- digestingProcessing consumed food
- metabolizingChemically processing substances internally
- learningGaining knowledge gradually
- comprehendingMentally taking in meaning
grasping · acquiring · apprehending · soaking · imbibing · ingesting · osmosis · permeating
acculturating
Adopting another society's norms
conforming · naturalizing · adjusting · amalgamating · harmonizing · homogenizing · fusing · melding · coalescing · incorporating
internalizing
Making beliefs your own
- digestingProcessing consumed food
- metabolizingChemically processing substances internally
- learningGaining knowledge gradually
comprehending · grasping · acquiring · apprehending · soaking · imbibing · ingesting · osmosis · permeating · saturating
- Learning Stylesauditory, visual, kinesthetic, tactile, verbal
- Inclusion verbsincluding, adding, admitting, incorporating, integrating
- eatingchewing, biting, swallowing, nibbling, munching
- consumptioneating, drinking, consuming, ingestion, ingesting
- familiarizationfamiliarizing, acquainting, orienting, introducing, accustoming
assimilatingisolating
Setting apart from contact
segregating · separating · rejecting · differentiating · resisting
assimilatingrejecting
Refusing to accept
expelling · excreting · repelling · nonabsorbent · resisting
assimilatingrejecting
Refusing to accept
resisting · accommodating · compartmentalizing · ignoring · forgetting
- forced assimilationCompelled cultural absorption
- cultural assimilationAdopting another group's norms
- immigrant assimilationNewcomers adopting local customs
- assimilation policyEnforced cultural absorption mandate
- assimilation policiesForced adoption of dominant culture
- social assimilationMerging into prevailing culture